CAO Round 2: How To Change Your Course Offer If You're Not Happy
Students received their CAO Round Two offers at 10am today after nervously waiting for an SMS or email. Surprisingly, it's never been easier to change your course offer.
The CAO issued over 74,657 offers in Round One to 51,513 applicants. The CAO includes a mixture of Level 6, 7 and 8 courses with students being offered two choices on their CAO application: a Level 8, if they possess enough points, and a Level 6/7.
With the Round Two offers being announced today, a number of students will be unhappy with their final course offer. It's not the end of the road. Here are three options available to students unhappy with their offer:
1) Internal:
If a student chooses to study medicine and wishes to change to nursing once they arrive at college, they can do this in many cases. If a student chooses Arts and decides to major in English they can do this. Change is possible once the student enters a university or college and isn't 100% confident that their course is for them.
The candidate can approach the college administration to transfer from one course to another. Following a court case last year, where a student sued the CAO and UCD for giving up her place in a UCD veterinary course to another student due to her having results rechecked by the CAO and not having the results provided her in time to take her place on the course, the deadline for changing courses has been moved forward. Rather than being in mid-October, it is now the September 25th. As such, this will be the deadline to appeal to change courses internally within many colleges. Some have extended this deadline by a couple of days, however you should check with your individual college to confirm the deadline for transfer applications.
2) Level 6/7:
While Level 6/7 courses were overlooked in the past, more and more students are beginning their college education by completing a six or seven course and transferring to a Level 8 course. These courses offer Diplomas and the results of your Level 6/7 course can make you eligible for entry into a Level 8.
A number of institutions, including Blanchardstown IT and DIT offer Level 6/7 courses with the chance to progress to a Level 8. If students complete a Level 6/7 it also means their time studying a Level 8 decreases as they've already completed a years study.
3) Repeat:
The last option for students is repeating the Leaving Cert. Unfortunately, the current CAO system relies on the number of points students receive which means their options are dictated through the points system. If a student chooses to move internally within a college their chances of changing course relies on their original points. There's no guarantee that repeating your Leaving Cert will result in you obtaining your chosen course, but you can hopefully utilise a lot of the knowledge you've accrued during your first attempt, and will be a year older and wiser.
Applicants have until Friday, August 30th, at 5.15pm to accept their Round 2 offer should they have gotten one.